Bonny North Tyne Northumbrian Country Music John Armstrong fiddle, Billy Atkinson mouth organ, Billy Conran whistle George Hepple fiddle, Joe Hutton small-pipes, Donald Ridley accordeon

First published by Topic 1974 1 Tell her I am/Teviot Brig Billy Atkinson Recorded and produced by Tony Wilson and Tony Engle Notes by Tony Wilson and AL Lloyd 2 Barrington Hornpipe/Rowley Burn Joe Hutton Sleeve design by Tony Engle 3 The Rowan Tree/Jock of Hazeldean John Armstrong & Joe Hutton Front cover photograph by John Leitch taken at Rowhope, 4a Green Castle/Spot On Billy Conroy Joe Hutton’s home, at the top of the Coquet Valley - the hill b Corn Rigs Billy Conroy runs out to the Scottish border 5 Sheffield Hornpipe/Untitled Hornpipe Booklet photographs: Billy Conroy - Johnny Handle Remainder - Tony Engle /Miss Thompson’s Hornpipe The Billy Conroy tracks were taken from tape recordings /Liddle’s Hornpipe George Hepple & Donald Ridley originally made by Pete Knowles for the North-East 6 Hexham Races/Stool of Repentance Billy Atkinson Folk Folk Federation 7 The Wonder Hornpipe/Navvie on the line Joe Hutton 8 The Burn Divot George Hepple & Donald Ridley 9 Horsley Lassies/Bellingham Boat /The Howlet and the Weasel George Hepple & Donald Ridley 10 Sir Sidney Smith’s March John Armstrong & Joe Hutton 11 Liverpool Hornpipe/Steamboat Hornpipe Billy Conroy 12 J B Milne/The New High Level Billy Atkinson 13 Bonny North Tyne/The Redesdale Hornpipe Joe Hutton 14 Drink to Me Only / Will Ye No Come Back Again John Armstrong & Joe Hutton 15 Nancy/Whinshield’s Hornpipe/Whinham’s Reel George Hepple & Donald Ridley 16 Geordie’s Jig George Hepple 17 Jenny Bell Polka Billy Conroy 18 Napoleon’s Grand March/Untitled March Billy Conroy 19 The Friendly Visit/Green Castle/Lass on the Strand Billy Atkinson 20 The Girl with the Blue Dress On/The Big Ship George Hepple & Donald Ridley About the tunes publication, A Booke of New Lessons for the Cithern and The double jig Tell her I am became popular after Gittern (1652), but it‘s hard to see the resemblance. lt is also Francis O’Neill included it in his Music of Ireland early in the sometimes played as a strathspey. century, and its appearance on a record by the great Michael Coleman gave it added impetus. Police chief O’Neill heard Green Castle appears as The Greencastle Hornpipe in it from Bernard Delaney, a piper from Tullamore, Offaly, O’Neill’s Music of Ireland, where it is No. 2557. O’Neill whom he discovered playing in a saloon on Van Buren obtained it in 1875 from James Moore, a young Limerick Street, Chicago, ‘rolling out the grandest jigs, reels and flute-player, and he considered it ‘one of the best traditional hornpipes I ever heard.’ It was later immortalised by Peter tunes in our collections’. There is argument whether the tune Sellers on A Drop of the Hard Stuff. Teviot Brig is a familiar belongs to Co. Antrim, Co. Down or Co. Donegal. Each has Bonny North Tyne Scottish dance tune whose genealogy is traceable to that its Greencastle. Under the title of ‘Sawney will never be my enormous family of melodies of which The Wee Cooper o’ Fife love again’, the Corn Rigs tune appeared in Thomas Durfey’s 03 is the best-known member. play, ‘The Virtuous Wife’ (1679). It may have been composed by Thomas Farmer, who wrote other music for the play. In Barrington hornpipe/Rowley burn. Thomas Todd the 1733, Allan Ramsey set his poem ‘Corn riggs are bonny’ piper from Chopwell wrote the first tune while the second is to this melody, and under its new name it was frequently the work of Forster Charlton and named after a stream in his reprinted and introduced into a number of ballad native Hexhamshire. operas, eventually passing into traditional currency. Corn Rigs is the title tune for the Northumbrian longways The Rowan Tree is well-known as the air to the song of progressive dance using the characteristic rant step. that name written by Lady Nairne (1766-1845), a dogged Jacobite and the author of Wi’a hundred pipers an’ a’, The The Sheffield Hompipe, Miss Thompson ‘s Hornpipe, Laird o’ Cockpen and other favourite ‘White Heather’ Liddle’s Hornpipe, are all to be found in The Charlton pieces. The tune ofJock o’ Hazeldean was originally attached Memorial Tune Book, published by the Northumbrian to a song called In January last which Thomas Durfey Pipers’ Society, and a very popular source of material for introduced into his play ‘A Fond Husband’ (1677), and Northeastern musicians. Miss Thompson’s and Liddle’s which later appeared in many tune-books between 1679 and were composed by Errington Thompson, the maker of Joe 1733. Early in the nineteenth century the tune was sent to Hutton’s pipes. Hexam Races and The Stool of Repentance are Alexander Campbll, editor of Albyn’s Anthology (1816) and both Scottish tunes in origin, well-known among musicians he coupled it with the words of Jock o’ Hazeldean, a poem both sides of the Border. In Scotland, the former melody is by Walter Scott, based on the first stanza of the fragment known as Kenmore Lads. that appears in Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads as No. 293E. It was this coupling that gave the tune its new lease of life in traditional circulation. John Glen, editor of Early Scottish Melodies (1900), suggests that the origin of the tune is Tantarra, or LashIeye’s March, printed in a Playford TSDL239 The Wonder Hornpipe and Navvy on the Line are currency after its publication in R Griffin’sJacobite Minstrelsy credited as the work of James Hill of Gateshead, composer (1826), a song longingly addressed to Bonny Prince Charlie, of the High Level Hornpipe, known to American fiddlers as perhaps composed not long after 1745. President Garfield’s Hornpipe. Navvy on the Line is widely used in England for the clog hornpipe. Nancy is a composition of Tom Clough’s, while the Whinshields Hornpipe was written by J L Dunk, author of a The Burn Divot is one of George Hepple’s own work with the rather off-putting title ofHyperacoustics ` and compositions. The jigs Horsley lasses, Bellingham Boat, and Tonality: Its Rational Basis and Elementary Development’. The Howlet and the Weasel are all to be found in The Charlton Geordie’s Jig was composed by George Hepple. Memorial Tune Book, now out of print but shortly to be Bonny North Tyne published in an expanded version by the Pipers’ Society. Sir Napoleon ‘s Grand March is well known in Ireland, Sidney Smith’s March is namedafter a Tyneside industrialist, Scotland and the north of England under a variety of names. 04 and the seconds played here were devised by Tom Clough. It is also familiar in America (particularly in western Pennsylvania), and it appears on an Australian record, The Liverpool Hornpipe appears as No. 1565 in O’Neill’s played by Simon McDonald of Creswick, Victoria. Some Music of Ireland. It’s quite an old tune, and a version of it, players know it as Napoleon Crossing the Rhine (but the called Blanchard ‘s Hornpipe, is printed in James Aird’s march under that title printed as No. 1824 in O’Neill‘s Music Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs (1782). of Ireland is a different tune). It is possibly Scottish in origin. A version appears in vol IV of R A Smith’s Scottish Minstrel J B Milne was composed by Angus Fitchet, a fiddler (1824), called The Pride of the Broomlands. A similar version of Dundee origin, highly respected in Northumberland. appears as Lochnagar in Kerr’s Second Collection of Merry The first part ofThe New High Level was written by James Melodies (n.d.), and this set, which is very close to the one Whinham as a sequel to James Hill’s High Level Hornpipe. played on this record by Billy Conroy, reappears as Loch Na The second part was added in recent years by a Scottish Gar Strathspey in One Thousand Fiddle Tunes, published by accordionist, Andrew Rankine. M M Cole of Chicago in 1940. Slowed down, and somewhat adapted, the tune was used as an evangelical hymn, called Bonny North Tyne is a composition by Billy Ballantyne, The Family Bible, during the wildfire religious revivals of a piccolo and flute player from Simonburn, North Tyne. the early part of the nineteenth century, and a four-part The Redesdale Hornpipe is the work of prolific James Hill of shapenote setting is given in William Walker‘sSouthern Gateshead, and is sometimes known as The Underhand. Harmony, published in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1835, and subsequently much reprinted in gospel song collections. Drink to me only is one of the best known lyrical airs in Other titles are Bruce ‘s March, Ranahan ‘s March, England, but the identity of its composer remains a mystery. Freemason’s March, and Samuel Bayard ‘once heard it played It has been attributed to Arne, but there are no good grounds by a New Jersey fiddler who gave it the ubiquitous name of for the attribution. The famous poem to which it is set is, of Bonaparte’s Retreat.’ Very recently, Napoleon’s Grand March course, by Ben Jonson. Will ye no come back again? gained has been separately recorded from two Co. Clare concertina TSDL239 players, Bernard Sullivan and Tommy MacMahon. many occasions. John owns a magnificent collection of pipe and fiddle tunes, including original manuscripts by James Friendly Visit is No. 1696 in O‘Neill’s Music of Ireland. Hill, Tom Clough and R Whinham, and provided many of O’Neill got it from the Rev. William Dollard, a flute-player the tunes for the Charlton Memorial Tune Book. and fiddler as well as a priest. The title commemorates a A series of accidents to his hands, resulting in a visit paid by Father Dollard and the Rev. Richard Henebry stiffening of his fingers, has led John to concentrate more (also a fiddler, and something of a wayward musical genius on the fiddle in recent years and he began playing duets who wrote the curious Handbook of Irish Music, (Published with Joe Hutton in 1972. Most of the duets he plays on this by Cork University Press in 1928) to a musical gathering at record were originally intended for two sets of pipes, this the home of O’Neill’s colleague, Police Sgt. James Kerwin, combination being much more common locally than that Bonny North Tyne on Wabash Avenue, Chicago, in the closing years of the of pipes and fiddle, probably because of the difficulty in nineteenth century. Green Castle is another version of the reconciling the differences of pitch and dynamics between 05 tune on track 4. the two instruments.

The Girl with the Blue Dress On and The Big Ship are both Billy Atkinson was born in 1908 and lives at Broomhill to be found in The Second Fiddler’s Time-Book (n.d.), edited Farm, a few miles North West of Alnwick. He has worked as by Peter Kennedy and published by The English Folk Dance a shepherd but spent much of his life as a rabbit catcher until and Song Society. myxymatosis spread to the county in the 1950s. His uncles played fiddle and Billy learned many of his tunes from them John Armstrong is in his mid-sixties and works two large though in recent years he has supplemented his repertoire farms on the edge of the Army firing range a few miles from with tunes learned from radio, TV, gramophone records and Elsdon. tape recordings. He is a prominent member of the local community, Though he does not read music he has composed a being a noted stick dresser and huntsman, in addition to number of fine tunes and his interest in traditional music his activities as a musician. John is a member of the famous takes him to concerts, festivals and competitions as far afield Border ‘gryne‘ of Armstrongs and can trace his ancestry back as Perth, Kinross and Newcastle where he has won a number to Johnny Armstrong, the notorious ‘Gilnockie’; his wife is a of prizes both as a composer and performer. Billy also plays descendant of the legendary Muckle Jock Milburn. button accordeon and played with several local bands before For many years John’s main interest was in the becoming a member of the Cheviot Ranters in the 1950s, Northumbrian pipes and he is proud of the fact that his appearing with them in a number of broadcasts and TV family has the longest unbroken tradition of piping in the programmes. county, his son being the fourth generation to play the His son George is one of the best of the younger family’s set of Reid pipes. The Clough family of Blyth were generation of Northumbrian pipers and can be heard on the frequent visitors to the Armstrong farm at Raylee’s after the Topic Northumbrian pipe record Wild Hills o’ Wannie. Billy first world war and John frequently played duets with Tom plays a Japanese three-octave, Blue Rhythm, C mouth organ. Clough. He also played duets with the late Billy Pigg on TSDL239 Billy Conroy, now a great-grandfather, was in his mid-sixties He is a member of Gretna Accordeon Club and is a regular when these recordings were made. He comes of Irish stock attender at the Perth accordeon competitions where he has and lives in Ashington where he worked in the pits until his won several prizes for his playing. retirement. Many of his tunes were learned from his father He plays a Ranco Supervox accordeon. who also played the whistle but in recent years Billy has picked up many tunes during his frequent visits to the area’s Joe Hutton was born at Cornwood near Haltwhistle but for folk clubs. the last fifteen years he has herded 550 half-bred Blackface/ He makes his own whistles from a variety of materials Swaledale ewes on the 1,100 acre Rowhope farmsteading ranging from broom handles to bicycle pumps, using the in the upper reaches of Coquetdale, two miles from the simplest of tools - a pocket knife, a pair of scissors, a hacksaw Scottish border. Bonny North Tyne and a file - and his products are much sought after by the Joe‘s father, a shepherd and fiddle player, encouraged younger generation of musicians. At one time he led a band his son’s early interest in the pipes. His main tutor was the 06 of whistle players composed of pupils from a local school. late Mr G G Armstrong of Hexham and in 1937, playing a His musical tastes are catholic and he plays a splendid 4-drone, 12-key set of pipes by Reid of South Shields, Joe version of the Swing classic ‘In the Mood’; he also has a fine won the Thompson cup for novices. In 1951 he swept the collection of nonsense songs and is a proficient painter in board at the competitions at Newcastle, Alnwick, Rochester, oils. Hexham and Bellingham and is now acknowledged as Other pieces by Billy may be heard on the Topic record, the North East’s premier piper. He is in great demand for Canny Newcassel. concerts throughout the county and pays regular visits to folk clubs on Tyneside. George Hepple was born at Cowburn, near Haltwhistle Joe‘s present set of pipes deserve a biographical note to and comes from a family of musicians. His grandfather was themselves. They are a 17-key ivory and silver set made in taught to step-dance by Whinham, the travelling dancing 1876 by the farmer, Errington Thompson, of Sewingshields, master and composerof several of the tunes on this record, from a single elephant tusk, turned on a manually operated and George can remember countless musical evenings at his lathe improvised from an old sewing machine. family’s farmhouse. Before his retirement three years ago Digital remaster ℗2013 Topic Records Ltd. he worked as a blacksmith and specialised in wrought-iron ©2013 Topic Records Ltd. work. The copyright in this sound recording and digital artwork is owned by Topic Records Ltd. He has played fiddle in country dance bands for most of All rights reserved. his life and also plays Northumbrian pipes, guitar and finger- style G banjo. Though he has a wide and varied collection of tune-books and manuscripts, he has a special affection for Northumbrian music and has composed a number of tunes in the idiom. George Hepple’s nephew, Donald Ridley, is in his late TOPIC TSDL239 twenties and lives near Carlisle where he works as a builder. www.topicrecords.co.uk John Armstrong Donald Ridley Billy Atkinson

George Hepple

John Armstrong and Joe Hutton

Billy Conroy (with budgie)